Hacking a vehicle with EM Shielding

How do I phrase this... That passage is written without considering the seriously edge-case situation we're discussing. AR and VR are ways to interact with devices and hosts, AKA, "the matrix". More than nine times out of ten, there's no reason you'd try to use AR or VR without being wireless. But consider this...

You know how you can hack a hardwired system, where everything is a throwback device wired to eachother? You still use AR or VR to do it even though it's cut off from the matrix, because that's how computers work in Shadowrun. AR and VR are ways to interface with the matrix and devices.

I think I understand firebug's argument in saying you don't need to be "on the matrix" to directly jump in to a vehicle. If I do understand her correctly, I don't agree. Sr5 pg 241 lists Jump Into Rigged Vehicle as a Matrix action. No Matrix = No Matrix Actions, logically. You, your RCC, and/or your Vehicle you're directly jacked in to need to have contact with the Matrix to do a Matrix action, neh?

No, you don't. Editing a file is a matrix action. Are you going to argue that you can't write on your commlink when it's not connected to the matrix? What's needed is a device capable of performing the action, and a connection to a valid target. Normally this is done wirelessly via the matrix, but you can just plug into the device you are targeting. The reason a direct connection removes any Noise is because you can interface with the device without the matrix.

Honestly? Yeah, I think there is room to say you can't perform an Edit File Matrix action on your commlink without any Matrix connection... as the way storage is described for Commlinks that any data "on your commlink" is actually quite likely stored somewhere on a Renraku or Shiawase Server in some Data farm, out on the Sixth World version of the Cloud. Yeah, I'd expect that while inside an EM shielded vehicle you'll potentially have issues playing songs stored "on your commlink" while on stakeout or such.

But I take your what I think is your larger point about wireless comms. Should two people inside an EM shielded vehicle be unable to make a commcall between each other? I'd have to bring real world assumptions in about an intermediary Cell Tower being required to say no, whereas the rules do seem to suggest that a simple LOS broadcast directly between the two Commlinks could probably work.

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Really, am I being that crazy by suggesting that turning off your wireless doesn't stop you from using wires to connect to things?

First of all, thanks for engaging in sincere discussion.Second of all, no I have no issues with over-the-data-cable matrix comms. To reiterate for clarity's sake, yeah if the Rigger is directly jacked in to the EM Shielded Vehicle, he's able to transmit and receive Matrix comms through the faraday field by virtue of being hard-connected to the vehicle that is otherwise stopping Matrix signals from propagating through it. My issues are around wireless comms only. Specifically, whether wireless devices all inside a faraday cage can use matrix protocols to talk to each other in a sort of Mini-Matrix existing separate from the global Matrix at large. On reconsideration, I suppose maybe they can. The rules don't appear to insist upon the alternative.

While I wouldn't let a passenger inside an EM shielded vehicle perform a Data Search Matrix Action, but perhaps there's no RAW reason why they couldn't, by virtue of being able to communicate with other devices within the EM shield (arguably, so long as the Data desired is actually stored locally on a device physically within the same EM shield).

Thank you all for your help. Now to give some additional details from the scenario...

According to the GM, the Rigger was apparently susceptible to Matrix attack because once he plugged into the vehicle, its icon was subsumed into his own, meaning that he was now active in the Matrix, even though his commlink was off and the vehicle's wireless functionality was disabled. The act of jacking in and receiving VR bonuses is what opened him up to attack. This was the first point of contention.

The second point of contention is the vehicle itself being open to attack, even though its CPU is within the EM Shielding (faraday cage), with its wireless disabled.

The Rigger attempted to create a situation where all those within the vehicle were isolated from the outside world, and safe from hacking/tracking via personal gear, while escaping from a hostile encounter. With this goal in mind, I'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretations of RAW vs RAI.

Thank you all for your help. Now to give some additional details from the scenario...

According to the GM, the Rigger was apparently susceptible to Matrix attack because once he plugged into the vehicle, its icon was subsumed into his own, meaning that he was now active in the Matrix, even though his commlink was off and the vehicle's wireless functionality was disabled. The act of jacking in and receiving VR bonuses is what opened him up to attack. This was the first point of contention.

It's true that when you Jump In to a rigged vehicle, the vehicle's icon disappears and is replaced by your own persona. Now how that'd work if the Rigger is not on the matrix himself is less clear... but I'd say that if you're not on the matrix (e.g. using a Commlink or RCC to broadcast a persona) you can't use the matrix in the first place (that's the whole point of being a technomancer)... So while you can jack a cable directly in from the datajack in your forehead to the dashboard inside the vehicle, unless you're also using a Commlink/RCC you still can't perform the Jump In action. So therefore yes if you're Jumped in you have to have a persona (or a Technomancer has to be broadcasting his Living Persona)

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The second point of contention is the vehicle itself being open to attack, even though its CPU is within the EM Shielding (faraday cage), with its wireless disabled.

Two parts to that. The EM shielding, by the way I read the language, protects the people/cargo inside the vehicle. Not the vehicle itself. However, shutting the vehicle's wireless capabilities off would protect the vehicle (without need for fancy EM shielding).

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The Rigger attempted to create a situation where all those within the vehicle were isolated from the outside world, and safe from hacking/tracking via personal gear, while escaping from a hostile encounter. With this goal in mind, I'd love to hear your thoughts and interpretations of RAW vs RAI.

Generally, being "hack proof" should be on one hand an in-universe desirable state while simultaneously being unachievable from a game balance point of view. You shouldn't ever be able to make yourself unassailable from one of Shadowrun's Three Worlds. Especially so if your niche revolves around that world. A hack-proof rigger is as ridiculous as a Sammie who wants to find a rules justification to where he can't be hurt in combat, or a mage who can't be affected by enemy magic.

Now, that being said having an EM-shielded vehicle with wireless off is pretty well close to being hack-proof for practical purposes, I'd say. I'd even go so far as to penalize the driving of the vehicle, as the vehicle isn't interacting with Gridlink or other vehicles in traffic. If the Rigger wants to be hack proof, I'd say the game is designed to achieve that end by having a hacker on your side protect you. Just as in you don't ever get to be immune to magic; best you're supposed to do is have a mage on your side do overwatch. Now, there's no reason the Rigger couldn't be his own hacker. Many of the Decking and Rigging skills overlap, afterall. I'd say that working within the rules is far easier on everyone involved than finding ways to circumvent the rules.

Hack proof means different things in different frames of reference. A PhysAd who only packs around weapon focus sword. Is "hack proof" in some sense, odds are PhysAd has not cyberware, and weapon focus sword is really just a lump steel. So ain't really gonna hack that.

But that doesn't make him hack proof in the sense that a decker could hack a car and try to run PhysAd over with it.

Clearly success may vary, and running over a PhysAd sin't the easiest thing to do. But the point is made.

There should an accept standard, of this device isn't active wirelessly, and it has no connection to matrix. Like the Auto-Pistol from weapons 3, that only has a dumb laser sight and purely mechanic components. Those sorts of things are hack proof. It doesn't break the game to include such things.

I believe I take your point, but a Rigger being Hackproof isn't comparable to a PhysAd being Hackproof... it'd be comparable to a PhysAd being immune to hostile Magic.

The way the Matrix 2.0 is described, pretty much anything that's not a natural object is on the matrix. They even use the example of a Katana in the bricking rules... yes you can brick a Katana. It's just that being bricked doesn't stop the Katana from being a 4 foot long razor sharp length of steel.

OTOH they make toggling wireless off a free action, which means that by the rules you may as well leave everything wireless off by default and only turn things on immediately before using them, and immediately off again after. Which renders the whole "everything's wireless" paradigm moot. But that's a gripe with the game design, not with you

Going back to the example of a Rigger driving a wireless-off vehicle: Riggers require the matrix to rig (SR5 pg 266: must be in VR to Jump In), and yet the rules appear to allow cutting yourself off from the matrix while rigging. It's a conundrum that imo merits GM "interpretation" like imposing a dice pool/threshold penalty to represent the absent data feeds that are usually omnipresent while operating a vehicle. Maybe it's more appropriate but more rules-harsh to say that from inside a wireless-off vehicle with wireless-off RCC/Commlink, your Noise Rating for Matrix Actions like piloting your vehicle counts as an uncounterable -8 dice (max penalty based on "distance" from the outside world that you've been shut out from). Maybe not. YMMV.

If a rigger plugs a cable from the car into the CR in his head, I don't have an issue with it being not wirelessly active. Which does make it hack proof in some sense, there is a computer there. So you have find an alternative means to connect with it, so again hack proof would be a relative term.

We talk alot about how to make stuff hack proof, but if you go to your average missions table to look around at the characters, lets be honest how many are using wireless enabled? For me and I have played a lot of missions tables. The vast majority did, at minimum most had Smartguns, a lot had reaction enhancers combined with wired. Yes there also good number magic folks who largely didn't carry hack-able gear but even some of them still did. Regardless of the forums attitude on the subject the vast majority of basic missions player are not taking deep hacking precautions.

Now that could easily change if the mods started pushing hackers, I promise if the Opposition Forces started bricked cybereyes with any kind of regularity at tables tables and internal routers would suddenly become the most hot ticket item sense pokemon cards at a millennial convention. But as is the system seems to working.

I'm taking it to another thread because for the purposes of the OP's question, it sure does look like just simply going wireless off across the board pretty well renders you immune to hacking (barring a data tap or physical connection). My point I'd like to discuss is what downside a Rigger could/should suffer for being completely wireless, so I'll pursue it in that new thread rather than keep hijacking this one.